Shva

Shva or, in Biblical Hebrew, shĕwa is a Hebrew niqqud vowel sign written as two vertical dots beneath a letter. It indicates either the phoneme (shva na', mobile shva) or the complete absence of a vowel (/Ø/) (shva nach, resting shva).
It is transliterated as , (apostrophe), or nothing. Note that use of for shva is questionable: transliterating Modern Hebrew shva nach with is misleading, since it is never actually pronounced – the vowel does not exist in Modern Hebrew. Moreover, the vowel is probably not characteristic of earlier pronunciations such as Tiberian vocalization.
A shva sign in combination with the vowel diacritics patáẖ, segól and kamáts katán produces a : a diacritic for a (a 'reduced vowel' – lit. 'abducted').
Pronunciation in Modern Hebrew
In Modern Hebrew, shva is either pronounced or is mute (Ø), regardless of its traditional classification as shva nach or shva na, see following table for examples. The Israeli standard for its transliteration is only for a pronounced shva na (i.e., one which is pronounced ), and no representation in transliteration if the shva is mute.
In Modern Hebrew, a shva is pronounced under the following conditions:
Counterexamples
One exception to rule 2 seems to be 'inventory' (although according to the New User-Friendly Hebrew-English Dictionary (Arie Comey, Naomi Tsur; Achiasaf, 2006), the word is instead pronounced ); the absence of a vowel after the might be attributable to the high sonority of the subsequent liquid , compare with (not ) 'filling' (in cuisine).
Exceptions to rule 6 include (not – 'pianist'), (not – 'English'), (not – 'we will sprinkle'), several inflections of quinqueliteral roots – e.g.: (not – 'he synchronized'); (not – 'he did stupid things'); (not – 'he had a flirt') – as well as other, more recent loanwords, e.g. (not – 'mantra').
In earlier forms of Hebrew, shva na and nach were phonologically and phonetically distinguishable, but the two variants resulting from Modern Hebrew phonology no longer conform to the traditional classification, e.g. while the (first) shva nach in the phrase ('books of the Law') is correctly pronounced in Modern Hebrew with the (or /f/ sound) being mute, the shva na in ('time') in Modern Hebrew is often pronounced as a mute Shva. In religious contexts, however, scrupulous readers of the prayers and scriptures do still differentiate properly between Shva Nach and Shva Na (e.g. ).
Traditional classification
In traditional Hebrew grammar, a shva is categorized according to several attributes of its grammatical context. The three categories of shva relevant to standard grammar of Modern Hebrew are shva na, shva naḥ and the less common shva meraḥef. When discussing Tiberian pronunciation (ca. from the 8th until the 15th century) some shvas are classified as shva ga'ya. The following table summarizes four distinguishing attributes which determine these categories:
Does the shva supersede a vowel or no vowel in the word's non inflected form?
Is the preceding letter pointed with a "short" or a "long" niqqud-variant?
Is the following letter, when , pointed with a dagesh qal or not?
Is the letter which is pointed with shva assigned to the preceding or to the following syllable?
To help illustrate the first criterion (existence or non-existence of a vowel in the word's non inflected form), the location of the shva (i.e., the place within the word where the lack of vowel is indicated by it) is marked within the phonemic transcription with an orange linguistic zero: Ø; if existing, the corresponding vowel in the basic (non inflected) form of the example is also marked in orange.
Shva Na
In most cases, traditional Hebrew grammar considers shva na, or the mobile shva, to be an entity that supersedes a vowel that exists in the basic form of a word but not after this word underwent inflection or declension. Additionally, any shva marked under an initial letter is classified shva na.
Merely identifying a given shva as being a shva na offers no indication as to its pronunciation in Modern Hebrew; it is however relevant to the application of standard niqqud, e.g.: a letter following a letter marked with a shva na may not be marked with a dagesh qal (Modern Hebrew phonology sometimes disagrees with this linguistic prescription, as in – 'they zapped' – in which the second pe is pointed with a dagesh qal although preceded by a shva na), or: the vowel preceding a letter marked with a shva na must be represented by the "long" niqqud-variant for that vowel: qamats and not pataḥ, tsere and not segol etc.. Furthermore, in standard syllabification, the letter under which a shva na is marked is grouped with the following syllable.
The Academy of the Hebrew Language's transliteration guidelines specify that shva na should be transliterated only if pronounced in Modern Hebrew, in which case be used for general purposes and for precise transliteration. Shva na is sometimes transliterated . Concerning Modern Hebrew pronunciation, however, this symbol is misleading, since it is commonly used in linguistics to denote the vowel schwa, which does not exist in Modern Hebrew.
A shva na can be identified as such by means of the following criteria:
when marked under the first letter of a word, as in and ,
when marked under the first of two identical letters,
when it's the second of two shvas marked under two consecutive letters (except when marked under the last letter of a word), as in and ,
when the letter before the one under which it is marked is marked with a "long" niqqud-variant such as the long vowel of either yod or ḥiríq, as in (yəḥīḏəḵa), or the long vowel of waw or ḥolam, as in the words , and (hōləḵīm, yōdəʻīm and mōḵərīm) and , "šōfəṭīm wa-šōṭərīm."
when marked under a letter with a dagesh ḥazaq (historically an indicator of gemination), as and .
For a more detailed account, see
Shva Naḥ
Traditional Hebrew grammar defines shva naḥ, or shva quiescens, as indicating the absence of a vowel. In Modern Hebrew, some shvas classified as shva naḥ are nonetheless pronounced (e.g. the shva under the second dalet in the word – – "you (f.) robbed"; see table above).
In all but a small number of cases, a shva not conforming to the criteria listed above is classified shva naḥ. This offers no conclusive indication as to its pronunciation in Modern Hebrew; it is however relevant to the application of standard niqqud, e.g.: a letter following a letter marked with a shva nacḥ must be marked with a dagesh qal (Modern Hebrew phonology sometimes disagrees with this linguistic prescription, as in – "to miss" – in which the second pe lacks a dagesh qal although preceded by a shva naḥ), or: the vowel preceding a letter marked with a shva naḥ must be represented by the "short" niqqud-variant for that vowel: pataḥ and not qamats, segol and not tsere etc.. Furthermore, in standard syllabification, the letter under which a shva naḥ is marked is grouped with the preceding syllable.
The Academy of the Hebrew Language's transliteration guidelines specify that shva naḥ should not be represented in transliteration.
Shva Meraḥef
"Shva meraḥef" is the grammatical designation of a shva which does not comply with all criteria characterizing a shva na (specifically, one marked under a letter following a letter marked with a "short", not a "long", niqqud-variant), but which does, like a shva na, supersede a vowel (or a shva na) that exists in the basic form of a word but not after this word underwent inflection or declension.
The classification of a shva as shva meraḥef is relevant to the application of standard niqqud, e.g.: a letter following a letter marked with a shva meraḥef should not be marked with a dagesh qal, although the vowel preceding this letter could be represented by the short niqqud-variant for that vowel. This reflects sometimes, but not always, pronunciation in Modern Hebrew, e.g. ('kings of') is commonly pronounced in accordance with the standard form, (with no dagesh qal in the letter kaf), whereas ('dogs of'), whose standard pronunciation is , is commonly pronounced (as if there were a dagesh qal in the letter bet). In standard syllabification, the letter under which a shva meraḥef is marked is grouped with the preceding syllable.
Shva Ga'ya
Shva ga'ya designates a shva marked under a letter that is also marked with the cantillation mark (lit. 'bleating' or 'bellowing'), or , e.g. the shva under the letter bet in the word ('toes') would normally be classified a shva na and be transliterated : (or according to the precise standard, : ), however, if marked with the ga'ya cantillation mark this shva is classified as shva ga'ya, and the transliteration believed to reflect its historical pronunciation would be . This "strict application" is found in Yemenite Hebrew.
T'nua hatufa
Within niqqud, vowel diacritics are sorted into three groups: big, small and fleeting or furtive (and ), sometimes also referred to as long, short and very short or ultrashort. This grouping might have correlated to different vowel lengths in earlier forms of Hebrew (see Tiberian vocalization → Vowels; spoken Israeli Hebrew however does not distinguish between different vowel lengths, thus this orthographic differentiation is not manifest in speech).
The vowel diacritics classified as ('fleeting') all share the common feature of being a digraph of a small vowel diacritic (Patach, Segol or Kamatz Katan) plus a shva sign. Similarly, their names are derived from the respective small vowel diacritic's name plus the adjunct : , and .
As with a shva na, standard (prescribed) syllabification determines that letters pointed with a fleeting vowel diacritic be considered part of the subsequent syllable, even if in modern Hebrew pronunciation this diacritic represents a full-fledged syllable, thus e.g. the phonologically trisyllabic word ('he placed upright'), pronounced , should standardly be syllabified into only two syllables, .
Comparison table
Unicode encoding
As of 2016, a separate Unicode symbol for the sheva na has been proposed but not implemented.
See also
Niqqud
Schwa
Tiberian vocalization
Arabic diacritic sukūn
Notes
Long and short niqqud-variants represent identical spoken vowels in Modern Hebrew; the orthographic distinction is, however, still observed in standard spelling.
References
Bibliography
Niqqud